In various industries fasteners play a critical role in the assembly of various products, and it is generally desirable to enable such fasteners to be unfastened in order to permit servicing components either associated with the fasteners or enclosed within an area secured by such fasteners. While it is desirable to enable such fasteners to be unfastened it is also important that such fasteners hold tightly under varying stresses and loads, while also remaining free from generation of sound due to vibration, among others.
For example, in the automotive industry many pieces of a vehicle are fastened to other pieces of the vehicle, e.g. headliners to a roof of the vehicle, and it is important that these fasteners have high closure strength, while remaining silent. It is also desirable that these fasteners are easy to install while also facilitating removal when repairs are needed.
In addition, numerous configurations exist at installation time, for example, in an automotive application, a single fastener design is often insufficient to meet the required installation configuration. Therefore, it is necessary to have numerous fastener configurations available during installation. This means that a manufacturer must be able to provide a number of custom fastener configurations for various applications, which can lead to added cost and manufacturing issues.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,695,057 discloses a plastic spacer/riser to increase usable height of a reclosable fastening system, such as 3M™ Dual Lock™ or Velcro® hook and loop products. The spacer/riser is adapted to be held in place on an external substrate with hot-melt glues sonic welds, pressure-sensitive adhesives, acrylic foam tape, or screws. Such techniques however, may result in eventual failure of the device after periods of varying vibration.
It is accordingly a primary object of the disclosure to provide a fastener which is easy to install, holds fast to the fastened elements, and facilitates removal, but only when desired.